Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Bolaven Is For Lovers

This was the
perfect place to visit during the beginning of the rainy season. Unlike my
other bike treks, I was able to stay on sealed roads the whole time.

This also
carried with it a fair bit of frustration because I know that Laos, the real
Laos, the vanishing Laos – can only be accessed off dirt roads. Sadly, most of
the dirt roads I saw were already hopelessly flooded or in a state of
muddiness.

And so I was
condemned to have an easy time of it.

Having said
that, my reaction to the Plateau is to return in the dry season when I can
discover the little parts of it, the people parts of it. The main axe is a
Vietnamese colony. Not in the sense that the Vietnamese rule the roost, but
rather that everybody is Vietnamese: the barber, the repairman, the waiter… And
so I will return in the dry season, hopefully with Marie-Do.

Bolaven is for
lovers. In everyplace I chose to stop, save one, I was able to sleep in a resort,
on a waterfall, and slumber away my aches in clean, ironed sheets. I was able
to enjoy excellent foods and that ultimate luxury: bacon and eggs for
breakfast, real coffee and toast and English speaking staff.

The climate on
the Plateau during this season was Southern European in August, although it did
rain every day. Just a little bit, never too much. At the beginning of the
drizzle, a simple raincoat would keep me dry and gliding along deserted asphalt
road. Listening to the light rain hitting the flat rice fields or the leaf
large forest trees was refreshing, a pleasure. Heavier rains could only be
dealt with by seeking shelter.

The landscape is
very reminiscent of Europe, as well. Gentle hills and valleys, cows grazing in
pasture. A soft green sweet land…

One dry morning
I took a dirt road and what I discovered was a troop of several hundred workers
planting coffee trees on what looked like newly cleared land. They stood or
shovelled, made holes in the wet red earth; the eternal stances of working men
and women of all time. Some smoked a cigarette, babies were carried on hips;
and on the other side of the road the new plantation stretched over hills.

Surely there is
more to this story than I can see with my naked eye. Like many other pleasant
destinations, the soil of Bolaven is surely soaked with all kinds of mischief.

BTW, my new
camera really sucks. I cannot get the thing to take pictures without some
incorrect date stuck in the corner, and I haven’t got the patience to figure it
out.

The Lao take one
day at a time, you know, to such an extent that many of them have already
forgotten about last year. The monsoon comes every year and so I wonder why I
see so many hamlets that are already flooded out. Satellite dishes they have,
but raising the road to keep it dry no one has thought of.

Smithy shops
line the road. It doesn’t take a huge
leap of the historic imagination to remember a time when such things were
common in Europe and the Americas. Everybody
here is making the same object: a machete which is perfect for most basic
agricultural jobs, such as cutting down fruit. We can also remember a time when
waste water was just thrown in the streets in Europe, so there is hope that one
day the Lao will stop burning their garbage.Most of the time, it must be said, living in a time machine is a unique
privilege.